Jack Cannon's American Destiny

Rachel Thompson

Monday, September 9, 2013

The Benjamin Chronicles: Relativity by Matthew DiConti

CHAPTER SIX

There was a brightness in front of Conal’s eyes, a white light, almost as though he was staring directly into the sun. But his eyes were closed, squeezed tightly shut against the pain throbbing in the back of his head.

He heard someone screaming in the distance, it sounded as if the voice he heard was coming from under water. He opened his eyes slowly, and his head began to spin. He was nauseous from the pain.

“Conal! Conal!”

The voice was hysterical.

His head rolled in the direction of the sound. His vision was blurred; he could only see blobs of shapes and colors. What was the one moving toward him? The voice got louder as the blob moved.

“Conal!”

A familiar face, a pretty face floated above him.

I know her. The face was a comfort, an image he had seen many times before. She seems worried. Why?

It all came back to him as his vision began to clear. The tunnel of light, the shock as he grabbed the handle, the shaking levers, Abby.

“Abby.” Relief shone in her eyes as he wheezed her name.

“Oh, thank God. Conal, I need you to wake up. I don’t know what’s happening. Where are we? I don’t know what to do.” She convulsed in tears, her sobs wracking her entire body.

Conal struggled to sit up, fighting off waves of nausea and the overwhelming desire for sleep. “It’ll be all right, Abby. It will be okay.” He swallowed his words as he surveyed his surroundings.

In truth, he fully expected to wake up on the floor of the gymnasium, humiliated from having hallucinated the entire thing and passing out.

He could not have guessed where he had ended up. His heart was pounding at the possibilities.

And then he was vomiting, his head exploding as his stomach retched and he clutched onto cobblestone in a futile attempt at finding stability.

Clearly he had been knocked out when they landed, or whatever it is that you do in a time machine.

Even a concussion could not keep at bay the sarcastic chuckle under his breath. He hardly dared to let himself imagine that this had actually happened.

The scent of horse manure carried lightly to him on a chilly breeze and he began to gag again. “Oh my God, okay, that’s disgusting.” Don’t worry about me. I’m fine, he thought to himself

Abby cringed bitterly as she helped him to his feet. “I’m sorry, I just don’t do well with throwing up. Are you going to be okay?”

“I’ll be fine.” I don’t have a choice. “Just shaking the cobwebs loose.”